Many years ago, family members noticed a lack of respect
between J and I. Somewhere during that time frame my mom also mentioned that
whenever I spoke to J I had a nasty tone of voice. What was going on inside our
home was leaking out. In case you don’t know us well, opposites did not attract
in our case. We are both incredibly strong willed and independent, full of energy
and easily excitable. We do balance each other out well, but if we both think
we are right, and neither is willing to yield, then, well…
It is hard to live a lie, and we were living a lie. Things
at home were awful. We were in love, but we did not like each other. We both
strongly agreed that marriage was forever, him because he had witnessed its
demise and me because my family was full of lifelong marriages. Marriage is a
big deal and even though we eloped 3 months after meeting, neither was willing
to throw in the towel. I knew that he was the head of the house, even if he had
not earned that right. Even if he was disrespecting our home and causing
mischief. But, just knowing that information and even believing the Word to be
totally true, did not make it easy to show him respect. In our culture we believe
and teach that respect is to be earned. God taught me through some tough years
in our marriage that you can respect someone into respectability. But in order
to start being respectful I had to start allowing God to soften my heart and
take away my need to be right.
Mom mentioned not long after she corrected me that she had
never seen someone correct a problem so quickly. She said my voice and tone were
like night and day. But, it has still been a long journey to where we are now. I
offer you this backstory to tell you a new story.
After
a long day of hard work serving in the aftermath of hurricane Michael, riding
home in the truck, still seeing such utter devastation everywhere we looked, I
leaned over and said to J: I am so proud to be your wife, your servants’ heart
is amazing. I love how you lead our family. He smiles, blushes and says: it
shows. After a few minutes of wondering what he meant, I had to ask. He answered:
if you didn’t believe in what we were doing you would be bucking the system,
instead you make me so proud to be your husband, you are one hard working
woman.
Mutual
honor. Submission. Words that make most Americans cringe. But in our home, it
has become a beautiful thing. 1 Peter 3:1 ‘Wives, respect and
obey your husbands in the same way. Then the husbands who do not obey the word
of God will want to know God. They will want to know God because their wives
live good lives, even though they say nothing about God.’ Most often
when talking about respecting our husbands we talk about the Ephesians 5
passage but this passage right here, is what grabbed a hold of me and
transformed our lives.
